Keep Your Identity Small • Hacker News Board

Re: Keep Your Identity Small

#71

Post by irrelative » Sun, Feb 08, 2009, 4:45 AM UTC

pg wrote: post #60

immad wrote: post #8

I think I concur that in educated discussions Identity does not help, but I have been thinking through the importance of identity for a while. I think in many situations identity gives you strength. I have an identity within Y Combinator, with my family, with people that went to my University, in the countries I have lived in etc. These fragments of my identity all give me strength, it means I would help people out t…

You're right. That's why I was careful to qualify it with "all other things being equal." In general identity gives you strength while making you stupid. This can sometimes be a good trade, especially in stressful situations. E.g. I think this is one reason people in the US are so much more religious than they were when I was a kid. People who 30 years ago might have been skeptical of preachers are now thinking that…

Just for some context, are people much more religious than when you were a kid? I had figured this was a relatively stable number. Or maybe you were referring to how fervent people have become with their religious views?

I'm curious about the actual trend of religiosity, and I'm somewhat skeptical of anecdotal data (for the very reasons in your article). What is the general trend from someone who's been following this longer?

Re: Keep Your Identity Small

#72

Post by DaniFong » Sun, Feb 08, 2009, 4:46 AM UTC

silentbicycle wrote: post #59

dhimes wrote: post #22

Such is the wisdom of Zen and some other Buddhist philosophical flavors.

Buddhists aren't immune to squabbling about ideological differences, either, of course. (But meditation helps.)

Buddhist practitioners are human too, of course, but a central practice in Buddhism is to dissolve and refute concrete belief in a persistent self and consciousness.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small

#73

Post by tobib » Sun, Feb 08, 2009, 4:51 AM UTC

I disagree that the more labels someone has the dumber they make you. And I strongly disagree in that. I know people that believe in almost nothing. Not in a religion, not a programming language. Sure there won't ever be a religious argument. But also probably no discussion at all because there is nothing to talk about with them. I have a lot of believes and disbelieves but I still consider myself able to talk about those things without ending in a fight.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small

#74

Post by DaniFong » Sun, Feb 08, 2009, 4:53 AM UTC

One trouble with following this line of reasoning to its limits is simply that one doesn't have an endless supply of mental energy. It is not merely easier to mark something about yourself as known and solid, and move on; it also frees cycles for other things. One simply can't go about life questioning every action in terms of its relationship to values which you are supposed to figure out. It's too hard.

So, perhaps it might be best to say "keep your identity as small as possible, but no smaller."

Re: Keep Your Identity Small

#75

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Feb 08, 2009, 4:54 AM UTC

palish wrote: post #45

RK wrote: post #11

A technical note about his note [1]. pg says, When that happens, it tends to happen fast, like a core going critical , but he probably means "like a core going super critical", which is when a chain reaction goes on at an increasing rate (i.e. what you need for a nuclear explosion). Critical is an equilibrium (i.e the self-sustaining condition, as used for power generation). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_mass

More important than technical accuracy, I knew what he meant.

[deleted]

Re: Keep Your Identity Small

#76

Post by swb » Sun, Feb 08, 2009, 4:57 AM UTC

I don't know about religion, but I think you are righter than you might guess about politics. Most political discussions ultimately devolve into an argument between collectivists and individualists. If you think about it, most of the individualists have direct access to some sort of resources, such as land, capital, intelligence, or whatever, that aren't possessed by the collectivists. In other words, they are privileged, either by custom (law), biology, or just plain circumstance. The collectivists have no such luck. They have nothing to work with directly. They consequently have no choice but to work indirectly. That is, they HAVE to work collectively, for the supposed good of everybody. The option of working directly with resources, without paying some sort of toll, or exclusively for one's own good, isn't there. No amount of logic or talk can change this situation. BTW, I should make it clear here that I'm not downing collectivists. You'd be a fool not to run with what you were given. What needs to be changed is how resources are allocated, not the rational behavior of people who are stuck with a particular allocation. Some of this (such as land distribution) could possibly be addressed culturally. Some, however, such as differences in intelligence, cannot be. In any event for all practical purposes the person's political stand might as well be an indelible part of their identity.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small

#77

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Feb 08, 2009, 4:57 AM UTC

palish wrote: post #45

RK wrote: post #11

A technical note about his note [1]. pg says, When that happens, it tends to happen fast, like a core going critical , but he probably means "like a core going super critical", which is when a chain reaction goes on at an increasing rate (i.e. what you need for a nuclear explosion). Critical is an equilibrium (i.e the self-sustaining condition, as used for power generation). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_mass

More important than technical accuracy, I knew what he meant.

[deleted]

Re: Keep Your Identity Small

#78

Post by astine » Sun, Feb 08, 2009, 4:58 AM UTC

PGs thesis seems to boil down to this: If you believe in something strongly enough, it will cause you to want to defend it and you may compromise your rationality and civility as a result. For which reason we should believe in as little as possible and be as non-committal in our beliefs.

I'm not sure that this is an ethically tenable position: shallowness extolled as a virtue. It's true, people who don't believe in anything don't argue about religion and politics, they fight over fashion and celebrities. I'd prefer people to have strong, well-formed opinions that they are ready to defend, even against me, to people with no opinion at all.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small

#79

Post by mynameishere » Sun, Feb 08, 2009, 5:05 AM UTC

gravitycop wrote: post #64

pg wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm. I could change it. But are you sure it wouldn't be hypercorrect to phrase it that way? Isn't going critical a kind of shorthand for going supercritical, because in practice any situation that produces the first is going to produce the second? Edit: Actually I think criticality is the right metaphor. It's a change in state from what preceded it. That's the important part, not the resulting explosion. (Arguably th…

Reaching criticality is a normal goal for the operators of a controlled nuclear reactor (nuclear power reactor unit; research reactor; etc.). A reactor that has reached criticality is usually one that is operating normally. For example: http://www.google.com/search?q=%22initial+criticality%22 The JRR-4, which reached initial criticality in 1965, had contenued to aperate safely until 1996 using uranium of a high conce…

Sure, and the result of that "normality" is furiously boiling water.

Re: Keep Your Identity Small

#80

Post by daveambrose » Sun, Feb 08, 2009, 5:06 AM UTC

Looking at pg's title, I thought this essay was going to be about keeping your online identity small or centralized - which, would have been interesting given today's decentralized social web identities.